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DELUXE LEATHERBOUND MORSE, FAELTON & TODD

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:500.00 USD Estimated At:800.00 USD
DELUXE LEATHERBOUND MORSE, FAELTON & TODD
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Mehl, B. Max. LXXXIX. CATALOGUE OF THE MORSE, FAELTON AND TODD COLLECTIONS. A REMARKABLY FINE REPRESENTATION OF THE COINAGE OF THE WORLD, ANCIENT TO MODERN, PRINCIPALLY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM THE COLONIAL PERIOD DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. RARITIES OF EVERY SERIES… Fort Worth, June 23, 1936. 8vo, original flexible brown pin-grained full morocco, rounded corners. 113, (3), (12) pages; 2274 lots; halftone portrait of Mehl and three office scenes; coin illustrations; prices realized list bound in. Light rubbing to spine, else fine. The Deluxe Leatherbound Edition. Ex Armand Champa library (Davis/Bowers Sale IV, lot 3764); ex December 10–11, 1988 Kolbe/Spink sale, lot 206; ex T. James Clarke, with his name in gilt at the base of the front cover and inscribed on the front free flyleaf: “To Jim Clarke — a true numismatist and a still better fellow. B. Max.” Extremely rare. Perhaps only five copies or so were originally issued. While only the Morse-Faelton-Todd, Dunham and Atwater sales are known in special bindings (excepting Mehl’s personal copies of some sales), it is possible that one or two others remain to be discovered. Only the Dunham sale, however, appears to have been issued in any appreciable quantity. It apparently was part of Mehl’s masterful promotional campaign and most of the deluxe Dunhams appear to have been issued, pre-sale, to Mehl’s coterie of big spenders. Morse and Atwater appear to have been issued, post-sale, and only to those who sufficiently loosened their purse strings at the sale. Judging from the few copies of these deluxe catalogues currently known, Mehl’s qualifying standards were high indeed. Why Morse, Faelton and Todd was issued in deluxe format remains something of an enigma. Though his most important sale in a decade it pales in significance from a number of earlier sales and from the series of blockbuster Mehl sales to follow. It is bound in the same style as the deluxe Dr. French fixed price catalogue and the leatherbound editions of the Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia found in Mehl’s own library. The only other three copies of this sale that we recall coming to market are those inscribed to F.C.C. Boyd, C.M. Williams and Emery May Norweb.